May Iverson's Career Part 12

Young Moran's horse proved better than he looked. With the greatest ease and lightness he carried his rider along the trail, a little in advance of me where it was narrow, and close beside me when it widened out. As we rode, the young man became all boy again. He knew every mountain tree and shrub, every late plant that had raised a brave head above the pall of autumn leaves, every bird whose note sounded near us or which winged its flight above us. He pointed out the bright yellow blossoms of the evening primrose, the bursting pods of the milkweed, the "purty look" of asters, gentian, and white everlasting against the somber background of the hills. He was delighted when we flushed a covey of quail, and at one point he stopped abruptly to show me the old swimming-hole which he and his brother had used, and on the banks of which, he added grimly, his brother had been killed by Tyrrell's eldest son. At this memory the shadow fell upon him again, and it was while we were riding on in a silence broken only by the padded hoof-beats of the horses that we heard a shot. Something from the underbrush at our right went humming past me, clipped a leaf from an overhanging bough above my companion's head, and sped onward to its harmless finish. Moran's horse, jerked back on its haunches by the rider's powerful grip on the bridle, stopped, trembling. Jef'son Davis s.h.i.+ed violently, only to be caught and steadied by the instantaneous grasp of Moran's right hand. In the same second the young man himself was transformed from the simple, gentle nature-lover of the trail to a half-human spirit of hatred and revenge.

"The polecat!" he hissed. "I know whar he is. I'll _git_ him this time!" With a quick swing he turned his horse. "Thar's your trail," he called back over his shoulder. "Straight on tuh th' bend--then go left."

He put his horse at a low but sharp incline on the right, and the animal scrambled up it with straining muscles and tearing hoofs that sent back a shower of stones and earth. In another moment horse and rider were out of sight.

It had all happened so suddenly that I had felt no fear. Now, left alone, it seemed incredible that it should have happened at all.

Outwardly, everything was as it had been a moment before. The soft haze of the October atmosphere still lay over the silent hills; the rea.s.suring whir of crickets was in the air. Jef'son Davis, happy in the comfort of a lax bridle, was eagerly cropping the leaves from an overhanging tree-branch. Yet within pistol-shot of this spot an a.s.sa.s.sin had crouched. Even now he and his enemy were perhaps having their last struggle.

With a deep breath, I gathered up the bridle and rode back at full speed along the trail over which I had come. When I drew near the Moran cabin I checked Jef'son Davis's pace and proceeded at a gentle canter. I did not wish to alarm Betsy Moran, but the door flew open while I was still some distance away, and the old woman hurried to meet me. Almost as soon as I had jumped from the saddle she was beside me, her eyes staring into mine with the question she dared not ask.

"Nothing serious has happened," I said, quickly, "but--" As I hesitated, she finished the sentence.

"They're arfter each othe'?" she said, dully. "They're shootin'?"

I nodded. Without another word, she turned and entered the cabin. I tethered my horse to a tree and followed her. There was nothing of helpless age about her now. Instead there was something horrible in her silence, something appalling in the preparations she at once began to make. She had gone through it all before--many, many times. She was ready to go through it again whenever the hour struck, and she had developed a terrible efficiency.

She filled the great kettle with water. She turned down the covers of the bed. From a closet in the wall she brought out linen and bandages, a few bottles, and several bundles of herbs, of which she began to make some sort of brew. At last she came and sat by the fire, crouched over it, waiting and listening. Occasionally she rose, went to the door, and looked out. Once or twice she whimpered a little, but she did not speak.

Darkness came. Several times I rose and put fresh logs on the fire. I found and lit a candle, to help out the firelight. It had become impossible to sit longer in that dim room, with its shadows and its memories, watching the terrible patience of the mountain woman and picturing a dead man, or a wounded one, lying helpless near the trail.

"Can't I ride somewhere and get some one?" I suggested once.

"No," the old woman answered, curtly. Half an hour later she added, more gently, and as if there had been no interval between her words: "They ain't no doctor in thirty miles. Ef Shep gits home, I kin tend t' him."

It was after ten o'clock before we heard a sound outside. I jumped to my feet, but the old woman was before me. Hurrying to the door, she flung it wide, and, s.h.i.+elding the candle with her hand, peered out into the blackness. Then, with a little cry, she handed the candle to me and ran forward. In the darkness something was crawling toward us, something that stumbled and rose and stumbled again. It collapsed just as it reached us, and fell near the threshold.

Someway, together, we dragged the last of the Morans into his home, and closed the door between him and his mountain world. His great body seemed to fill the cabin as it lay upon the floor, the arms and legs sprawling in incredible helplessness, the boots and trousers covered with mud, the blue s.h.i.+rt torn and blood-stained. Seizing one of her bottles, the old woman forced some of its contents between the boy's teeth, and as she did so he opened his eyes. For a moment he stared at her, at me, and around the cabin, dim in the flickering light of logs and candle. Then a gleam lit up his black eyes. His lips drew back over his teeth in a hideous, wolflike grin.

"He's done daid, gran," he choked out. "I got 'im!"

The old woman, who had been bending above him, dropped the bottle and sat back suddenly, flinging her lean arms above her head in a movement of wild exultation. A high cackle of joy broke from her. Then, remembering his need, she bent over him again and tried to force him to take more of the liquor; but he frowned it away, his stiff tongue seeking to form words.

"I--watched--him--die," he finally articulated, "'fo'--ever--I--tho't--o'--home!"

He closed his eyes and lapsed into unconsciousness. The old woman rocked above him.

"He's daid," she crooned. "He's daid, daid, daid!"

For a moment I thought it was her grandson she meant, but I saw that she was continuing her ministrations, accompanying them with this rea.s.surance to those deaf ears. For a long time the hideous lullaby went on, while she washed the wound in the boy's breast and checked its flow of blood, bandaging it as skilfully as any surgeon could have done the work. She let me help her now--keeping cold compresses on his hot head, for he was moaning with pain and fever, and giving him from time to time the medicine she had brewed. We could not move his great body, but we made him as comfortable as we could on the floor, and worked over him there while the night wore on, and the cries of prowling animals came to us from the mountainside.

Toward dawn the fever subsided. The boy's high color faded, and he hardly seemed to breathe. In my inexperience I was not sure whether these were good or bad signs, and I had no indication from Betsy Moran, whose face never changed as she hung above him. At sunrise she rose and went to the door, motioning to me to accompany her. There, following the direction indicated by her pointing, shaking old finger, I saw on the side of the hill, at the left of the cabin, six low mounds marked by six great boulders. For a long time the mountain woman looked at them in silence. Then she turned to me.

"He's daid," she whispered, with a kind of fierce delight. "_Tyrrell's daid._ Here's the e-end."

She leaned against the jamb of the door, staring up at the row of mounds defined against the desolate mountain by the first clear rays of the sun. A light breeze lifted the loose locks of her white hair and blew them about her face. In her eyes shone the wild exultation that had burned there the night before, when her boy had gasped out his message.

"Mrs. Moran," I asked, quietly, "how many Tyrrell graves are there?"

She answered me somberly, almost absently. "Five," she said. Then, on a sudden memory, her shriveled arm went up in a gesture of triumph.

"_Six!_" she corrected herself, exultantly. "Be six in th' Tyrrell lot t'-morrer."

Six in the Tyrrell lot to-morrow. Six in the Moran lot to-day--perhaps seven there to-morrow. And why? Unconsciously I uttered the word aloud, and the hills seemed to fling back the ironic question. Beside me the old woman stirred, thinking I was speaking to her. As if the words had touched a hidden spring, her confidence gushed forth, and as she talked she lifted her hands and began to twist into the tiny k.n.o.b of hair at the back of her head the white locks that blew about her eyes.

"'Twas fo'ty yeahs back," she said, at last, almost to herself. "Come Christmas, hit's fo'ty yeahs back. Er yearlin' o' ourn had tooken up with neighbor cattle, an' Tyrrell, he done claimed hit. They was always polecats, th' Tyrrells. Words come o' that, an' licks follered clost. At las' Tyrrell, he shot Amos--my man. 'Twa'n't long fo' Jep, my oldest, Shep's father, he killed Tyrrell. That's th' sta't of it.

Now we've come t' th' e-end," she finished, and drew a long breath.

"He's daid--Tyrrell's daid. Shep, he seen 'um die."

She led the way back into the cabin, and stopped at the foot of the ladder. "Go up thar," she said, almost gently. "Git some sleep. I reckon ye're perished fo' it."

I protested, but in vain. It finally became plain that for some reason she wished to be rid of me. She brought me a cup of some dark liquid and urged me to drink it. It was not tempting in appearance or flavor, but I drank it down. Then, as she still waited, I ascended the ladder and found myself in Shep's room--a tiny attic, its rafters hung with drying herbs, its pallet on the floor surprisingly clean, its one narrow window covering the Tyrrell trail. I had not expected to sleep, but I did--slept while the day mounted to high noon and waned to a gorgeous autumnal sunset.

I was awakened by the sound of hoof-beats, of men's voices, of many steps on the floor of the room below. For an instant I lay in puzzled silence, staring at the rafters above my head. Then, as memory awakened in its turn, I rose hurriedly and began to dress, my fingers shaking with excitement and nervousness. I understood the meaning of those pawing hoofs, of those heavy steps and rough voices, and as I dressed I listened. But all I caught was the tramp of feet, the sc.r.a.pe of furniture dragged across the floor, the whinnying of horses, impatient in the rising evening wind. Once I heard the old woman's voice, but I could distinguish only the word "sheriff." Soon I heard the heavy steps pa.s.s out of the house, and the creak and rattle of saddles and bridles as the visitors mounted their horses and rode away. They went slowly. They had arranged, I a.s.sumed, some sort of litter for the wounded man. In the room below there was absolutely no sound.

For a moment I hesitated. How could I go down and face that stricken old creature to whom life had just given this final turn of its relentless screw? Then, very slowly, I descended the ladder, my back to the room, afraid to move my eyes for fear of the scene they might rest upon. It was not until I stood on the cabin floor that I dared to look around me.

The living-room was swept and in perfect order. The last reflection of the setting sun lay in a brilliant line across its immaculate floor.

The door was open, affording a view of the long trail, along which the hors.e.m.e.n could be seen, riding slowly in single file. The kettle hung on the crane, the table was set for supper, and in the center of this peaceful scene my hostess sat alone, knitting a blue yarn sock.

Slowly she looked up at me. "Ef yo' slep' well," she said, quietly, "mou't be yer ready t' eat?"

She rose, laid down the blue sock, and began to move about the room.

Speechless, I stared at her. I had thought the night before that, coming from her, no evidence of self-control could surprise me. But this uncanny poise filled me with a sort of awe. I dared not even ask a question. She had erected between us the barrier of her primitive dignity, her terrible courage. I could no more pa.s.s it than I could have broken through the thick walls of her cabin.

She placed the chair at the table, and in silence I sat down. She poured tea for me, and cut a wedge of corn bread, but I could not eat.

After a few moments I gave up the effort, rose, and took my hat from the nail on which it hung. She watched me as I drew on my gloves. The action seemed to recall something to her.

"Shep," she said, casually, "he had t' borry yo' critter. Ye'll git it back soon's he kin send it."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, startled. "But--but was he able to ride--with his wound?"

She looked at me, her eyes showing the scorn of the primitive woman for such softness. "Lordy! Hawseback's same's a cradle to Shep," she muttered.

I drew a deep breath.

"They rode very slowly," I said. "I hope it won't hurt him. Good-by,"

and I held out my hand. "I'll walk to Clapham's. I know the way."

She put her hand in mine. In her eyes danced a sudden light, half mocking, half ecstatic. "Shep, he got off 'bout sun-up," she drawled.

"Fo'ty mile along he wuz 'fo' ever sheriff come a-nigh this place!"

I could not speak, but something, I know, flashed in my face and was reflected in hers. For a moment longer her wrinkled old hand lay still in mine. She seemed loath to withdraw it, anxious to say more. Perhaps she was recalling the long vigil of the night, when we two had worked together over the unconscious form of the last of the Morans. But her vocabulary offered her nothing with which to clothe those naked hours.

"Good-by," she repeated. And she ended primly: "I wish yo' well, miss.

I sho'ly hev inj'yed yo' comp'ny!"

VII